Niagara Falls: NCCC Culinary Institute opens

by jmaloni

Fri, Sep 14th 2012 11:30 pm

Things are cooking at Niagara County Community College's new Niagara Falls Culinary Institute at 28 Old Falls St., in the former Rainbow Center Mall. Classes are in session and a press preview tour was held Wednesday morning in advance of the official ribbon-cutting ceremony on Sept. 28. (Artist's rendering)

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Article and photos by Janet Schultz

Fifty
years ago, Niagara County Community College was founded and, a year
later, the college opened its doors to 343 students in downtown
Niagara Falls. On Sept. 4, NCCC opened doors to the Niagara Falls
Culinary Institute, just four blocks from the original site of NCCC.

The
90,000 square-foot Niagara Falls Culinary Institute is located in a
renovated and re-energized Rainbow Center Mall, which was donated to
the NCCC Foundation Inc. by Baltimore Developer David Cordish.

As
you enter the building, the lobby is wide open with tables and chairs
that invite you to sit down after you have purchased some pastries
from the pastry shop or a sandwich from the New York-style deli. Or
you can choose to dine in Savor, the fine-dining restaurant with an
open floor plan to allow guests to watch their meals being prepared.

Once
you finish eating, you can shop in the bookstore that combines the
regular items from Barnes and Noble but adds in those items normally
found at a retailer like William Sonoma.

Your
last stop on the first floor must be the wine boutique, where you
will sample local wines. Behind it is a mixology lab where students
will study wines on modern tables with lit bottoms for viewing wines
by the glass.

The
second floor brings you to the heart of education with 25 teaching
labs, classrooms, seminar rooms and a theater classroom. All but
three of the kitchens are multi-purpose. Those three are
temperature-controlled for candy-making, pastry and occasional cake
preparation and one for cured meats. There is also a community
education classroom that, while containing institutional grade
equipment, has a down-home feel for learning and an attached dining
room to serve what was prepared in class. Next to "Mise en Place,"
as the community education room is labeled, is a youth program room
that contains two teaching areas: one for youngsters to learn healthy
eating, and the other a cooking kitchen for youth ages 12 to 18.

"The
college offered kids cooking camps the past two summers," said Mark
Mistriner, chairman of the business and hospitality division at NCCC.
"We plan to do that again next year."

There
is also a business resource center where persons who have been
clients of NCCC's Small Business Development Center, and other such
centers across New York, can sell their jams, jellies, sauces and
other edible products at the retail test boutique. It also contains a
test kitchen, conference room and offices for small business
incubators, as well as the Niagara Small Business Development Center.

"It's
like a business incubator," Mistriner said. "It's another way
to retail locally made goods."

On
the third floor is a library with a fantastic view of the Niagara
Falls skyline to the north.

"We
researched a number of culinary schools in the country," explained
Mistriner. "We made our kitchens to be multi-purpose so we aren't
restricted when placing classes and we built the institute so the
community and tourists can enjoy it.

"We
hit a home run with our facility," said Mistriner, who was named
the 2012 American Culinary Federation Northeast Region chef educator
of the year.

"Our
facility is one of the top three or four in the country," he said.

The
institute, which has approximately 350 students, has a capacity for
1,000 students and currently employs seven full-time faculty members
and 10 part-time faculty.

"What's
unique about our faculty is that they all have worked in the industry
and they all have their master's degrees in education," Mistriner
said.

Mistriner
also explained that bus tours are being developed that package the
culinary institute with the sites of Western New York. Some tours
will include a chance to take a class at the institute.

Funding
for the $25 million project came from public and private partners,
the New York State Development Corp., Niagara County, the City of
Niagara Falls and private foundations.

The
students are enthusiastic about being the first to use the facility.

Donald
Mancuso and Joe Doan are second-year students. While they found the
NCCC campus facility to be nice, they are thrilled about the
institute.

"It's
going to be a great experience to work in a new facility," Mancuso
said. "This place is immaculate."

"It's
good to have a fresh start and you aren't as crowded here as at the
old place," Doan said.

While
it was a stressful time for Mistriner making the opening this
semester, he smiled with pride announcing that the deli and pastry
shops would be open later this month, the wine boutique early in
October, and Savor by the third week of October.